214 



AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



channels. Again the home of the Trout is in a rushing river, 

 sometimes many yards in width, and bridged throughout by 

 a tangled wilderness of cedar trees, some standing, but many 

 of their trunks lying at every possible angle, and in all stages 

 of decay. Through this series of obstructions the patient an- 

 gler works his way, sometimes losing sight of the stream while 

 he hears it gurghng beneath the mossy log on which he finds 

 his footing, then, a few feet further on, he sees below a black 

 pool of icy water, perhaps not three feet across, but of un- 

 known depth. Here, as in the rare glimpses of running 

 water on the semi-subterraneous mountain streams, the fly 



is useless. 



Some think that the skilled fly-fisher never uses bait. He 

 does, an' he be wise. Few are older or reckoned better an- 

 glers than Dr. William C. Prime, who says: 



"The true angler is not confined to fly-fishing, as many 

 imagine. When the fly can be used, it always should be 

 used, but where the fly is impracticable, or when fish will not 

 rise to it, he is a very foolish angler who declines to use 



bait." 



Many good and sportsman-like Trout-fishers there are, who 

 when circumstances render such effort feasible, will use noth- 

 ing but the fly, but who from the nature of the streams 

 among which they are compelled to seek their pastime, find 

 it often advisable to resort to bait. 



Bait-fishing, in the words of Genio C. Scott, "is of all 

 field sports the parent of more patience and eager persever- 

 ance than any other;" and Thomas Tod. Stoddart, writing of 

 summer fishing in Scotland, offers to prove "that worm-fish- 

 ing for Trout, when the waters are clear and low, the skies 

 bright and warm," "requires essentially more address and 

 experience, as well as better knowledge of the habits and 

 instincts of the fish, than fly-fishing." 



True is the saying: "It is not all of fishing to fish," and 

 while there is a mild pleasure in casting a fly over the roof 



